Samsung SSD 840 EVO Performance Restoration 😳

Performance Restored to it’s Original State, Average Read Speed 532MB/s no 35.1MB/s

Has Windows 10 Technical Preview finally installs on the test subject were going to talk a little about the slowdowns that’s been happening with Samsung SSD 840 EVO. It wasn’t to long ago that Samsung released a Firmware Update for it’s SSD 840 EVO that kinda fix the read speed slowdowns it was experiencing, The Guru of 3D is reporting that the problem is back again or was it ever fixed to begin with.

The chaps at Tech Report noticed that the Samsung 840 EVO TLC NAND is still suffering from read speed slowdowns. A few months ago this created a lot of controversy, after which Samsung was fast to release a Firmware that should have fixed this. Samsung issued a fix for an algorithmic error in the management routine that tracks the status of cells over time but … that obviously does not work well enough.

Looking at HD Tach you can see the performance degraded low as 35.1MB/s Read. The unit spent more than three months sitting on the shelf and old data on the disk was only recoverable with an average read speed of 35.1MB/s. Nonetheless this is shocking so much that Crystal Disk Mark was download immediately and ran the next day, apparently my Samsung 840 EVO seems to be operating fairly decent given the bad news.
Decent Read and writes it was reporting but it wasn’t all that welcoming when first running the benchmark. When Samsung released their Firmware update and when it was applied all the settings was set back to it’s default values and I forgot to enable Writer cache buffer.

The use of this feature does not affect the life or capacity of the SSD. In order to maximize both system and SSD performance, this feature is recommended. When using this feature, you will notice improvements, especially in random read/write performance.

The average write performance of the SSD was reporting 124.9MB/s and jumped forward with shock when the benchmark was completed. Bad enough Dream Machine 2014 turned out to be a complete nightmare and the only thing I favored the most out of the full build, was the Samsung SSD 840 EVO. That all changed when I noticed the read speeds of the SSD degrade within hours of operating, YES it was noticeable and I didn’t have any software installed, just the drivers for the hardware.

After playing around with Samsung Magician software and enabling Writer Cache Buffer under the Advanced Tab, everything seems to be operating at it’s correct speed with the Average Read 535.6MB/s and Write 517.3MB/s along with the 512K, 4K and 4KQD32 reporting exactly what I was getting from a fresh installation.

Honestly Samsung should extend the warranty on all 840 EVO drives or give us something we could benefit from, expect a firmware update that apparently do/don’t fix the problem. Even if they were to do something like extend the warranty it wouldn’t matter because I say the problem will always be there. It’s like the SSD needs a constant feed of power to fully stay alive, of course that’s just me. There going as far as saying it has to do with the temperature and wheres it’s been stored along with humidity readings etc, quite frankly all of the above.

Obviously there’s issues with long-term degradation of data stored in the triple-bit-per-cell memory and at this point I think I’m done with Samsung, don’t get me wrong their SSD’s are amazing, especially their Rapid Mode setting included in their Magician Software. When you have a SSD like the Samsung 840 EVO that has long-term degradation of data stored in the triple-bit-per-cell memory while it’s sitting on the shelf longer then three months it ant going benefit you or anyone else for that matter.

You’ll be better off going with a USB 2.0 Flash drive, hey at least you’ll be getting the maximum performance the Flash drive has to offer 30MB/s Read Speed.

Update

Laying back last night watching PC Perspective Podcast when the Samsung 840 EVO read speed slowdowns were mention. They were talking about SSD Read Speed Tester and how it checked the age of the files along with how fast it could read the data from the Cells, basically it’s a benchmark that don’t read just fresh files like the others do.

Techie007 the developer of the application, wrote a new benchmarking program that would specifically test for an age/speed correlation by reading files already on the SSD, and then display its findings graphically. Download SSD Read Speed Tester, extract the zip file and run the benchmark, it also saves a PNG picture when it’s complete.

In the graph there is a point where it drops below the 300MB/s read speed, while the rest of the benchmark seems to be pretty consistent across the board. After running SSD Read Speed Tester I have come to a conclusion that there’s still something going on with Samsung’s SSD 840 EVO drive and think the problem should be address ASAP. There’s times when my SSD feels like a mechanical HDD and other times it feels like it’s he future of storage, but at this point if the future of storage comes with performance issues and requires maintenance like the Samsung SSD 840 EVO, then I don’t want it, Sorry I’ll fine something else better next time.

Also like to point out that places like Maximum PC and many other places, like to recommend the 840 EVO over other Solid-state drives, will guest what… your better off going to a OCZ SSD, surely they had problems that were addressed in time and with Toshiba Acquisition of OCZ they just got better. If time would’ve went by a little faster before I purchased Dream Machine 2014 hardware I would’ve ended up with G.Skill Phoenix Blade (480GB) PCIe SSD.

PhoneyVirus
Has a passion for computer hardware and dream’s of been a professional technician one day, fairly educated on the subject and opened minded. Programing maybe one of many interest but are divided into what you call time. When he ant learning what’s new, he’s usually jamming out on electric guitar or playing some awesome PC Game.

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There will be no means of professionalism on this blog, it's a place to Rant about Crap that makes the beast come out in me and to let off some steam. So feel free to browse around and enjoy yourself, if you have any questions you like to ask related to computer gear or games click email me PhoneyVirus.

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PhoneyVirus

Now that I have a lot of time on my hands what else is there do but play PC Game's. I spend about fifteen hours a week playing electric guitar noting less, exploring and listening to new music, reading the monthly magazine's from PC Gamer and Maximum PC. Keeping up with the weekly news and keeping Stress down as much as possible the same time.

Also really enjoy looking for new software to play around with Building, Repairing, Tweaking, and Over-Clocking Computers. Modding Hacking Hardware like Routers, Consoles, Satellites and anything I can get my hands on.

When I ant doing any of the above, I'm outside enjoying the sun and ranting about stuff that make’s me mad. Plus repairing other people’s machines from the community, I also rant about that too, but it’s enough to keep me busy and can’t complain when you love doing what you do.